xxxvi THE HUNTER'S END 311 



occurred in many ways, and I can only offer a few 

 alternative suggestions in an endeavour to throw 

 some light on the affair. Goddard's rifle may have 

 hung fire, owing to a defect in the cap of the cart- 

 ridge (a mischance which has occurred on two or 

 three occasions to myself, even when face to face 

 with a charging elephant), or he may have fired at 

 the animal and failed to place the bullet in a vital 

 spot, the brute at once turning on him and killing 

 him. Again, the elephant may have hidden silently 

 in cover waiting for him, as elephants very often do 

 when pursued, and, when Goddard was only a few 

 paces distant, rushed out and taken him unawares. 

 Lastly, there is a possibility that in his excitement 

 he may have forgotten to reload his rifle. 



II 



A few years ago, a German, named Ringler, met 

 with a violent end while hunting elephant in the 

 Mbwehu bush, Kilwa district. Some two months 

 afterwards, when in the same neighbourhood, I en- 

 listed the services of the identical tracker that 

 Ringler had engaged, and from him I secured an 

 account of how the hunter had come by his death. 

 He told me that Ringler, one day, wounded an 

 elephant, and, on the day following, while tramping 

 through the forest, suddenly came across an elephant. 



